World Briefing | Asia: Malaysia: Whipping For Illegal Immigrants

The government amended a law to include public whipping for immigrants convicted of entering the country illegally for the first time. Currently, the Immigration Act allows whipping only for those committing the offense for the second time. The director general of the immigration department, Mohamad Jamal Kamdi, said a bill to amend the act to provide whipping for first-time offenders awaits royal assent and would probably be in force in June. Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, mainly Indonesians, are believed to live in the country of 22 million people.